In acknowledgment of the communication of Your Holiness to the
belligerent peoples, dated August 1, 1917, the President of the United
States requests me to transmit the following reply:
Every heart that has not been blinded and hardened by this terrible war
must be touched by this moving appeal of His Holiness the Pope, must
feel the dignity and force of the humane and generous motives which
prompted it, and must fervently wish that we might take the path of
peace he so persuasively points out. But it would be folly to take it if
it does not in fact lead to the goal he proposes. Our response must be
based upon the stern facts and upon nothing else. It is not a mere
cessation of arms he desires; it is a stable and enduring peace. This
agony must not be gone through with again, and it must be a matter of
very sober judgment that will insure us against it.
His Holiness in substance proposes that we return to the status quo ante
bellum, and that then there be a general condonation, disarmament, and a
concert of nations based upon an acceptance of the principle of
arbitration; that by a similar concert freedom of the seas be
established; and that the territorial claims of France and Italy, the
perplexing problems of the Balkan States, and the restitution of Poland
be left to such conciliatory adjustments as may be possible in the new
temper of such a peace, due regard being paid to the aspirations of the
peoples whose political fortunes and affiliations will be involved.
It is manifest that no part of this program can be successfully carried
out unless the restitution of the status quo ante furnishes a firm and
satisfactory basis for it. The object of this war is to deliver the free
peoples of the world from the menace and the actual power of a vast
military establishment controlled by an irresponsible government which,
having secretly planned to dominate the world, proceeded to carry the
plan out without regard either to the sacred obligations of treaty or
the long-established practices and long-cherished principles of
international action and honor; which chose its own time for the war;
delivered its blow fiercely and suddenly; stopped at no barrier either
of law or of mercy; swept a whole continent within the tide of
blood--not the blood of soldiers only, but the blood of innocent women
and children also and of the helpless poor; and now stands balked but
not defeated, the enemy of four-fifths of the world. This power is not
the German people. It is the ruthless master of the German people. It is
no business of ours how that great people came under its control or
submitted with temporary zest to the domination of its purpose; but it
is our business to see to it that the history of the rest of the world
is no longer left to its handling.
To deal with such a power by way of peace upon the plan proposed by His
Holiness the Pope would, so far as we can see, involve a recuperation of
its strength and a renewal of its policy; would make it necessary to
create a permanent hostile combination of nations against the German
people who are its instruments; and would result in abandoning the
newborn Russia to the intrigue, the manifold subtle interference, and
the certain counter-revolution which would be attempted by all the
malign influences to which the German Government has of late accustomed
the world. Can peace be based upon a restitution of its power or upon
any word of honor it could pledge in a treaty of settlement and
accommodation?
Responsible statesmen must now everywhere see, if they never saw before,
that no peace can rest securely upon political or economic restrictions
meant to benefit some nations and cripple or embarrass others, upon
vindictive action of any sort, or any kind of revenge or deliberate
injury. The American people have suffered intolerable wrongs at the
hands of the Imperial German Government, but they desire no reprisal
upon the German people who have themselves suffered all things in this
war which they did not choose. They believe that peace should rest upon
the rights of peoples, not the rights of Governments--the rights of
peoples great or small, weak or powerful--their equal right to freedom
and security and self-government and to a participation upon fair terms
in the economic opportunities of the world, the German people of course
included if they will accept equality and not seek domination.
The test, therefore, of every plan of peace is this: Is it based upon
the faith of all the peoples involved or merely upon the word of an
ambitious and intriguing government on the one hand and of a group of
free peoples on the other? This is a test which goes to the root of the
matter; and it is the test which must be applied.
The purposes of the United States in this war are known to the whole
world, to every people to whom the truth has been permitted to come.
They do not need to be stated again. We seek no material advantage of
any kind. We believe that the intolerable wrongs done in this war by
the furious and brutal power of the Imperial German Government ought to
be repaired, but not at the expense of the sovereignty of any
people--rather a vindication of the sovereignty both of those that are
weak and of those that are strong. Punitive damages, the dismemberment
of empires, the establishment of selfish and exclusive economic leagues,
we deem inexpedient and in the end worse than futile, no proper basis
for a peace of any kind, least of all for an enduring peace. That must
be based upon justice and fairness and the common rights of mankind.
We cannot take the word of the present rulers of Germany as a guaranty
of anything that is to endure, unless explicitly supported by such
conclusive evidence of the will and purpose of the German people
themselves as the other peoples of the world would be justified in
accepting. Without such guaranties treaties of settlement, agreements
for disarmament, covenants to set up arbitration in the place of force,
territorial adjustments, reconstitutions of small nations, if made with
the German Government, no man, no nation could now depend on. We must
await some new evidence of the purposes of the great peoples of the
central powers. God grant it may be given soon and in a way to restore
the confidence of all peoples everywhere in the faith of nations and the
possibility of a covenanted peace.